Data centers and gateway facilities consume large amounts of energy, not only from the various computer, telecommunications, and storage systems in the facilities, but also from the respective cooling systems needed to manage the heat generated by the equipment. With continuing expansion of computing networks, rising energy costs, and a desire to operate sustainable facilities, the need to efficiently manage energy consumption in data centers and gateway facilities becomes increasingly important. While facility operators may have limited control over the energy consumed by each piece of equipment, operators may control the manner in which the equipment is thermally managed.
Generally speaking, a data center is typically a dedicated building or room that contains servers and storage equipment that run software applications that process and store content and data. A gateway facility, on the other hand, is also typically a dedicated building or room with telecommunication equipment that process and route various forms of communication (e.g., phone calls, web browsing, streaming video) through a vast network of interconnected nodes, networks, and users. While data centers and gateways may perform different functions, both facilities use similar, and often the same, equipment (e.g., servers, routers, switches, server appliances, storage libraries) and face the same thermal management challenges.
In order to keep the equipment running optimally, the layout of data centers and gateway facilities are designed in conjunction with the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems or, more particular to this type of environment, the computer room air-conditioning (CRAC) system. Because most equipment is mounted in standardized racks, and the equipment is designed to intake cool air in the front of the unit and exhaust hot air in the back of the unit, the CRAC system is designed to flow cool air to the front of the equipment racks and to pull hot air from back of the racks for recirculation into the CRAC system.
Often, equipment racks in a data center or gateway facility are arranged in a “hot and cold” aisle arrangement. Referring to FIG. 1, equipment racks 50 are aligned in sets of two rows such that the back 52 of the equipment racks face each other and the front 54 of the racks face outward. In this arrangement, the “hot” aisle is the space formed between the backs of the racks of equipment and the cold aisles are located at the fronts of the racks. Alternatively and referring to FIG. 2, the equipment racks 50 may be aligned in a single row, with the front 54 of the racks in close proximity to the flow of cool air 56. Unfortunately, however, equipment is often installed backwards, intaking warm air and exhausting even warmer air into cool aisles. Such equipment is often very difficult to reorient for a variety of reasons. Nonetheless, in each of these arrangements, the exhaust air 58 must be recirculated back to the CRAC 60 to continue the cooling cycle. In addition to arranging “hot and cold” aisles, operators occasionally employ devices to direct and/or deflect the generated or exhausted warm air away from the equipment (e.g., in an upwards direction due to the natural flow of heated air). While not containing the hot and cold air spaces, these arrangements generally localize the hot and cold air by concentrating cold air at the front of the racks and hot air at the back of the racks.
With these thoughts in mind, among others, aspects of the exhaust air duct system disclosed herein were conceived.